Karmindy's Angioplasty

This past Friday, Karmindy was scheduled to have an angioplasty on her narrowing aorta. We arrived at Primary Children's Hospital around 1:30 pm to check in. After weighing her in and checking her vitals, we headed back into a room so a iv team could come in and place her iv for the surgery. After her iv was placed we got her dressed into her hospital clothes and were sent into a waiting room. The cath lab was running behind and so we had to wait until 4 pm before they could preform the surgery. It was really hard on us, as well as, Karmindy who hadn't eaten anything since the day before. She was a trooper for not having eaten anything and was so brave.

At 4 pm. they came and got us and took us back into the cath lab to preform her surgery. The reason we scheduled this surgery was to help balloon open what they thought was a narrowing aorta. The Surgery went smoothly and only took 1 hour. They had scheduled it for 3 just in case. After the surgery we were paged to go back and see Karmindy. Before we could see her though, we met with her Surgeon, Dr. Collin Cowley for her prognosis and update. The Surgeon learned that her aorta and the site that they fixed when she was a baby was not narrowing but that a piece of tissue is "kinking" the area and restricting the blood flow which is located above the original surgery site. (Think of a hose that is kinked and the hose in between is restricting the flow. The Dr. also compared it to an inverted belly button. You can push it in but it will pop right out.)  This is what the tissue is doing. They can balloon it and stretch it but it will go back to its original form.The Surgeon used 2 different balloons #8 and #10 and neither one would even balloon open the area. The Surgeon said The area would balloon out with each balloon but it would then fall back on top of each other. The surgery was an EPIC FAIL unless you consider finding out that the original surgery site was fine and it was actually additional tissue that was blocking the blood flow. The Surgeon told us that putting in a stent would not be an option like we had originally thought and so we would have to prepare to have open heart surgery again to fix this condition. Putting a stent in this place would potentially cause blood clots that would travel to Karmindy's brain and cause strokes. We were heart broken when he told us this. It is so hard to go through this time after time. It is also extremely hard on our little girl. For the time being we and the Surgeons decided that we will continue to monitor her progress and then if we have to do open heart surgery we will. The Surgeons were confident though that if we do open heart that she will potentially be fine for the rest of her life. They said we had that on our side. The other option is to monitor her blood pressure and hope this extra tissue will grow with her. We would prefer this option and hope and pray that this is the way that it grows.

This is so heartbreaking to go through and is still one of the hardest things that Mark, myself and Karmindy face. We know that we are continually sent miracles and marvel at Karmindy's determination and strength through each of these surgeries and procedures. Karmindy continues to defy the odds and press through this trial. Karmindy handles obstacle with grace. During this particular visit, she had several nurses in tears (along with her mom) because after they would continue to poke and prod, she would tell them thank you time after time. She seems  to have somewhat of an understanding of what is taking place and as her mom and those Dr.s, Surgeons and nurses that continue to work on her are blown away by her strength and strong spirit. We only spent the night on the recovery floor and she was allowed to go home early the next morning at 9am.

Karmindy getting ready to go home. She loved being able to watch TV on her very own TV and order anything she wanted to eat while she was recovering. She loved having all the chocolate milk, chicken nuggets, french fries and teddy grahams she could eat.

 I hope that Karmindy will always remember and know that she has great strength and has a great spirit to go through this very hard trial. She definitely has gone through more than most people go through in an entire lifetime. I am so proud to be her mother and she is a constant example to me, her dad, brother and those around her. We Love you Sweet Girl.